Tag: doodles
Welcome, friends, to my brand new site! After realizing that my former blog theme was no longer supported on WordPress and therefore failing to load images properly, I upgraded to a new theme and have spent the afternoon putting together a more robust and well organized homepage for you all to enjoy.
There are some sections that are still under construction and some kinks that are still getting worked out, so do bear with me as I bumble though, but hopefully the overall experience is much improved.
Since this wouldn’t be a proper blog post without some art, here’s a smattering of doodles from the past week. I’ve been out sick for four days with a killer cold, so this has basically been my M.O. of late:
Then there’s the first wave of backer birds for those of you who were kind enough to support the Cartozia Tales Kickstarter. Thank you!
And a couple portraits from the past month to round things out:
I didn’t come into the Studio this weekend so I had no scanner access, but here, better late than never, are this year’s Hourly Comics! (You can pick up on my salami jokes by reading last year’s installment right here.) Busy, busy times, but a whole lot of fun.
HCD_2013_1
HCD_2013_2
HCD_2013_3
HCD_2013_4
HCD_2013_5
HCD_2013_6
This week I revisited an exercise given to me by my awesome mentor Eben Matthews almost ten years ago.
In one of our early meetings Eben asked me what my least favorite thing to draw was. Like any budding 13-year-old artist I immediately pulled a face and said “hands.” He smirked and told me to come back with 100 of them drawn by our next session. I glowered and grumbled, but truth be told it was a deeply valuable exercise that stuck with me for a long time (even after he made me draw 100 feet the following week, the scum!).
While recently looking at lots of inspirational animation captures of beautifully rendered, expressive hands, I realized how long it had been since I’d drawn those first 100 and decided to do it again. I sketched a lot of them during classes, but also used various photo references and even some of the animation stills to get an idea of how to effectively simplify the anatomy.
Rather than a week, this took me about five hours altogether. It feels so good that I may have to start doing it more often. A decade is a little too long.
As you can see, I devolved a little at the end there and started drawing eyeballs and classmates — one of whom happens to look an astonishing amount like the female protagonist of Dylan Meconis’ spectacular comic, Family Man. Who knew?
And, to round things out, here are a couple quick sketches of puppets from the amazing John Frame exhibit currently showing at the Portland Art Museum. Strange, fascinating stuff if you get the chance to go see it.
That’s all for now! I’ve got some really exciting news and projects on the horizon, but I can’t share them quite yet, so I’ll try to keep the little illustrations coming.
Hey world! This post is chock full of news. CHOCK FULL. STAND BACK.
First: did some hourly comics for Hourly Comics Day this year. First time trying this, made my inner critic scream with rage, which probably means it’s the sort of thing I should do every day in order to get over myself. Also: cheated and stopped at 8, since the rest of the night was just dancing dancing dancing until midnight and beyond. Anyway: HERE. I MADE THESE FOR YOU.
Oh man. So that. ALSO: Our Monday night World Comics class at the IPRC has started a blog for your enjoyment [that is now defunct so I’ve removed the link]! We’ll be chronicling our adventures and projects there over the next couple months, so check it out. Good things to be had so far, and there will only be more in the weeks to come.
FINALLY: I forgot to mention this when it happened a couple weeks ago, but Baggywrinkles Issue 1 is now actually physically available in a real live comic shop! If you live in the Portland area and would like to get your hands on a copy sans shipping, head over to the totally awesome world of Guapo Comics! They have a few issues in stock, and will be getting the second volume as soon as I finish it. I am, as we speak, slowly working up the gumption to go around to some of the other rad establishments in our fine city, so hopefully that list will expand in the next couple weeks.
I think that’s it for now, but hoo boy. Stay tuned. Shit’s going to get crazy over the next few weeks.
Just a quick doodle from printmaking class today, where we were working with monotype prints*. The last week or so has been killer for social dancing — live music, great venues, excellent partners, late nights. I can’t feel my legs right now, of course, but that’s a small price to pay.
*Basically, to clarify the process, y’roll ink all over some acetate, stick a piece of paper atop it, and draw. Ink is picked up on the facing side of the paper where the pen presses it down. The only tricky part is resisting the urge to steady the page with one’s hand, which results in hideous blotches. There’s always a certain amount of noise around the lines, which gives everything a more textured look. I’m on the fence about it as a whole, but I liked this one.
A watercolor postcard I doodled many moons ago just resurfaced in my pile of outgoing mail. Thought I’d share for the sake of getting some color in here for a change — though my scanner doesn’t play nice with the vividness of the colors. I’d like to start doing these regularly, since I have a mess of blank watercolor postcards and a desire to revive and better my rusty-going-on-nonexistent skills. I’ll keep you posted.
Planted 80 spring and summer bulbs in the garden yesterday. Happy.
A couple quick comics from the past few weeks to keep you all entertained while I scrabble around for scans and photos to put in the big Fragment wrap-up post. Also: submitted my registration info for Stumptown this year! Trepidation! Nobody hears back until December, but that’s no reason not to use it as impetus for producing lots and lots of goodies.
Anyway…on to the art!
I occasionally resent the fact that Portland remains relatively habitable in the winter, since Vermont seems to have a lot going for it in the “soul-crushing cold as impetus for cartoons and nothing else forever” department. However, the onset of fall generally leads to an inclination to stay indoors and slave away over a hot drawing board, which is a fine substitute in my book.
Also: Hoo boy. Sleeping in! Am I right?
Keep yer eyes peeled for more excitement soon.
Dicking around with greyscale markers this afternoon. Let’s hear it for mismatched eyeballs!